Sunday, June 28, 2015

This week appears to have been the week of weird lunches, most that I really liked, one that I was very o.O about it.

It was also a very standard "Go to work, go to class, do homework, repeat repeat repeat" week, so I don't have much to say about the school week.

I love chicken and quail eggs (top right) and the soup is potatoes
and some sort of ricecakes that are awesome. LOVE IT

Carbonara pasta for special lunch!

Celebrating payday with some delicious BBQ

Cesca and I have been wanting these
hats that say waygookin on them for a while.
It means foreigner.

Ok seriously how is this something they can serve
in school?!?!? If my handler hadn't warned
me about the bones, I would have been in trouble.

New flavored sojus that I really want to try.

On Saturday, I woke up bright and early and met Lauren, Cesca and Ga Hyeon at the clinic near Lauren's house so we could get our medical checks done for our renewal.

the buses have installed hand sanitzer in the
wake of MERS

We had to get our temps checked and
wear masks before we got to the clinic.

They have reading glasses for you at the hospital
while you're filling out forms!

The experience went smoothly for me, mostly (the nurse even said I have good blood pressure, huzzah!) but poor Cesca and her difficult to find veins proved a challenge. She didn't look so good when she got her blood taken, but thankfully Ga Hyeon was with us and insisted to a nurse that she be given a place to lie down.

After a nice lunch and chat with Lauren and Ga Hyeon, I went home and intended to do some cleaning that I normally do on Saturday mornings, but apparently not eating, being hot and getting blood drawn wore me out, so I just took like a 2 hour nap and then got ready to head out again.

It was our friend Hanh's birthday, so we headed to Itaewon for a night on the town!

Hanh's friend brought a bunch of ring pops for us from Canada

Poor cesca's was broken

Birthday cake drink for the birthday girl!

I saw a bunch of friends I don't normally see, so it was a really great night!

On Sunday, Cesca and I lazed around cause we got home late Saturday and were tired, and then we went to dance class, which we were highly anticipating, because we learned the dance to Bigbang's BANG BANG BANG.

The dance to this song is energetic but also not excessively complicated, so we actually learned the whole thing.

It was fun and awesome and I can't wait for the real video our studio took to come out!

pretending like we're baller waygookin

we had so much fun

messing around after class

Of course I spent sunday night winding down and attempting to paint my nails with a new kit I got from Daiso that's supposed to make you have like, gradient nails. I'm not that good at it yet haha

After finally catching up on Penny Dreadful, I also spent a good portion of my weekend starting a drama my co teacher recommended, 사랑하는 은동아 (Saranghaneun Eun Dong-ah). It's a melodrama, which means I've cried a bunch watching it because I get easily emotionally invested, even though the story is predictable.

The title means "Beloved Eun Dong"
or "My Love Eun Dong"

It's a really intense and beautiful story (of course, with some tropes) about a boy and a girl who meet in 1995 after the boy almost hits the girl with his motorcycle. He feels indebted to her for hurting her, and so he wants to repay her by helping out. They develop a close friendship and start to have young love feelings for each other that they don't quite understand yet, when, suddenly, Eun Dong disappears without a trace.

Following Eun Dong's dream, the boy, Hyun Soo, attempts to become an actor, because he wants to find Eun Dong. He struggles for 10 years, wondering if Eun Dong was happy and grew up well. After not doing so well in his attempts at stardom, he enters the military to do his mandatory service time and, by chance, happens upon Eun Dong once again. The two rekindle their friendship and it quickly develops into more, when, suddenly and inexplicably, Eun Dong disappears.

Using his raw emotions and heartbreak for his work, Hyun Soo (now named Eun Ho, a name Eun Dong once said she liked), makes it big and becomes a famous actor. Convinced he can love no one else, he sets out to use his fame to find his beloved Eun Dong.

Eun Ho hires a ghost writer, Jung Eun, to write the autobiography for him and to publish the book, and through audio files and songs, reminisces about the times he shared with Eun Dong, hoping to find her again.

If you know kdramas, you can guess who Eun Dong is just by the description of the show, but I'm still hooked and can't wait to keep watching.

That's about it this week!

It's almost July, which means more hot weather, English camp (ugh) and new Bigbang songs( yay!!).

I heard it was a super exciting week in America, and I'm glad we're changing some things for the better. Equality is a long way away, but we're taking steps and that's huge. Fighting!!!

Love and support to all of my beloved friends and family!

~~

AOA had a comeback this week that I really like. It's a good summer song, and the video is cute, though AOA is a sexy concept group, so there the requisite boob and butt focus... I actually know one of the guys who got to be in the video- he was at my orientation. Small world!

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Despite the title of my post this week was pretty straightforward and simple. More on the crazy later. My kickball game got cancelled because of MERS, my classes are off schedule but that's ok, and it's hot and monsoon rainy here. That's probably the worst. Like, normally when it rains, it gets cooler. But not now. Nope. Now it just stays hot AND is rainy and dumb. Wamp.

The semester is sort of winding down at school. We have about 5 weeks, left, 4 of them teaching, since subject teachers usually don't have class the last week(ish) of classes. I also have summer camp to prepare for, but I hope that won't be too bad and that I'll have fun students to work with.

I can't believe it, but this week was my 22 months in Korea. It's been almost 2 years. Some days it feels like forever, and sometimes I think, "where did all the time go?"

My Korean class readings have gotten way longer.
I'm so excited I can read and understand this much!

It was a pretty normal week, no surprise class cancellations or anything, which is pretty rare. I taught third grade about emotions, fourth grade about jobs, fifth grade about culture/customs around the world (filler lesson), and fifth grade about directions. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really making a difference in their English, but then I get to smile when the girls cleaning the English room won't stop asking me questions or when they say hi after school. Hopefully their fear of foreigners is mostly gone, at the very least.

Special lunch day (Wed) ice cream!!!!
Knock off Dippin Dots. YUM

Because I, like everyone else I know, spent this week marathoning Orange is the New Black until way too late at night, I was super tired on Friday (plus I had a headache from some annoying 3rd graders and staring at my computer too much), so I just chilled at home and watched Penny Dreadful. On Saturday, Cesca and I met up to go to Costco for some necessities (like bagels and peanut butter), and then we met up with Lauren for dinner. The weather was crappy, and at at least 2 points in the morning, the thunder was SO LOUD that it made me jump and I almost fell out of my bed. Ugh. I hate monsoon and storm season.

Cesca's "OMG this escalator is long" face

We wanted to try an Italian place, but I guess it was under construction, so we decided on Mexican instead.

Tacos, burritos and a quesadilla later, wewere stuffed

After dinner, we all met up with Sarah in Itaewon and toasted to her getting into school in Germany. I'm sad she's leaving Korea, but I think the change will be good for her. Her school is crazy and not nice, so I don't think she could stand another year there. Wishing her luck!

Cesca had coupons to Emart, so we decided that a late night trip would be less stressful than going during the day, so we went on the way home.

The most poet toilet seat cover ever.such great spelling

We got lots of goods at Emart, then headed to her apartment.

We bummed around in the morning watching some Korean variety TV, and then we went and got crepes before dance class, because we've been talking about getting crepes for weeks and haven't done it because the timing never worked.

Cesca and I were being dumb so we took a lot of pictures.

The title of this string of photos is "Do another pose."

Another one

Do another

SWITCH

Again

Do something else

Do another

And then we had 2 crepes so of course needed to take more pictures

At dance class, we finally learned another girl group dance, which I think tends to be easier than the crazy guy dances we've been learning lately. This one, 4Minute's Crazy, was hard, but still manageable and I think we were able to kill it in the end.

This is the dance. It's awesome. We had a great time, so we treated ourselves to chimaek after haha. We're so healthy.

The MERS scare is subsiding, with only about 3 new cases this weekend and no more deaths (I think there were about 25 deaths in total and over 150 infected), so the numbers are slowing down and hopefully the paranoia will cease. Hopefully the hygiene practices will continue though. Seriously. No more coughing on my face on the subway please.

So, another normal week lies ahead. We're learning an awesome song next week in dance class, so I'm super excited. It's also payday this week, which is always awesome. I'll be busy the next few weekends with friend's birthdays, so hopefully I can rest up this week before the craziness starts.

Hope the weather isn't too weird back home and that everything is going smoothly for you all, wherever you are!

~~

I love this cute, adorable song by a newer group called Lovelyz. I've been listening to it all week.

Monday, June 15, 2015

It was around lunch time that something was amiss. My friends across town had mentioned MERS school closings, and even Cesca's area was considering the threat. But my area didn't have a peep. Until lunch time, when an announcement surprised us all. The students would be staying home Thursday and Friday. The kids processed this faster, apparently, because the mighty roar of joy that overtook the school was deafening.

Later, it was decided that the teachers also didn't have to report. This entire decision was due not to the actual threat of MERS, however. The school had met and decided that we should stay open, but the parents also had a meeting and voted we close. And thus, my 4 day weekend was born. With that in mind, the office was blah about working, so my office mates found a new app to play with. You type in your name and it told you how god made you.

Mine says a spoonful of intelligence,2 spoons of beautiful and because I was tooperfect, he had to make it all in a smallpackage. ACCURATE

Cesca's involved him thinking of what to put.He was gonna add a little of what the office toldme was something like nerdiness or potentialto be maniacally obsessed with stuff, and it spilledout.

I bought this before Korean class Thursdaybecause I didn't do much else that day

SO CUTE

Cesca loooves her banana milk

We got defended on a TV show I was watching,called "Hello Counselor"

Cesca got released from her school with no students duties on Friday, so we met up to go shopping for a bit in Edae.

Then we saw Jurassic World, which was good. It was a terrible, silly plot, but the lines were witty, it made fun of itself and poked fun at the problems (unrealistic dinosaurs, her running in heels, etc) that people would have with the movie. Plus, it was suspenseful enough for me and I was freaking out in the theater. Some of it was really scary!!!

Plus, what do you expect from a movie about dinosaurs and a park that would NEVER be allowed to open!?

On Saturday, Cesca and I ventured out to the Olympic Park Rose Garden.

There were so many roses!!! It was hot and we were like, the only foreigners there (no surprise...), but it was great to spend time looking at all of them.

And there weren't too many bees, since there had been a storm the night before (hence some of the worse for wear roses), which was honestly my main concern. No bees means happy me!

So pretty! it was exciting

This one is called Racy Lady.

Knock out

Selfie ception

It was hazy but bright. We hid it well, right?

heaaaart!

Turns out these are wind chimes!

A poem about roses in the roses

This poem talks about red roses, but wasseriously misplaced

Tried to catch her heel click. I missed.

On Sunday, we went to see Giselle.

We had to skip our dance class to go see it, but we've had these tickets since around March, and were excited to see it.

Speaking of dance class, our music video of Miss A's Only You (다른 남자 말고 너) is up on Youtube! It turned out pretty well, for us being English teachers and having only a few practices together, haha. You can watch it here:

Back to the ballet

Now, we thought it was just a newer, re choreographed version, because the Australian choreographer was famous for re interpreting classics. He decided to make this the premiere of his new Giselle, which utilized traditional Korean instruments in the music.

We got more than we were expecting haha.

Turns out reinterpretation means changing just about everything about the story, choreography, and score. It was Giselle in the basic sense only. Some of the changes (like most of act 2) made a lot of sense, but some changes, like having Giselle be strong and self aware, only to still die of a broken heart, didn't so much. There was also a mystical element that was unnecessary, because ghosts of girls who were betrayed or died before their wedding days that dance men to death is mystical enough.

The changes to the Willis and act 2 were really great. Act 1 didn't need so much tampering. And I still wish the music was the same.

Costumes from Sleeping Beauty

Sarah and I saw Giselle 1 year ago too! But thatwas the classic version

Cesca showing you how we felt about the changesin the first act

Again, it was interesting, but I prefer the classic version, score, choreography and design wise. The story of this new one worked well enough and was basic enough (lies, betrayal, heartbreak, revenge) that it could have been named something else, or been an interpretation of a different story, and it would have worked fine. I think using the classic's name kinda of made it easier to get attention, though I understand the need to update and change for ballet to remain current.

Anyway, after the ballet, we headed over to Gangnam for dinner and cupcakes, since we were out that way anyway.

I had a busy night sunday. Once I got back from cupcakes and the ballet, Young Ah had invited me to meet a friend of hers at his bar in Hongdae. He was pretty cool and we had fun, plus I got to practice my Korean. Young Ah was really impressed, since she didn't know that I could keep up any type of conversation in Korean for like, over an hour. I know she was this impressed because she told me at the end haha. It was super exciting to be praised like that, and it was nice to meet one of her Korean friends that's not a teacher.

That's why my blog is a little late this week! Sorry!

School is back in session and MERS is still really only spreading in hospitals (which I'm avoiding) and through family/friends of the infected. So far, still not a concern, but if it becomes one, I have hand santizer and masks at the ready.

Stay cool, monsoon season is almost here!

~~

On my repeat playlist this week is BigBang's other song of the month, a more boyband-y, fun, adorable song called We Like 2 Party

The video is just fun and them having a good time together. I love it so much.

About Me

I'm a short Italian girl with big dreams and a passion for travelling. I love Phantom of the Opera, video games, chocolate, my twin sister, and making witty remarks and funny faces.
I'm currently teaching English at an elementary school in Seoul, South Korea.